April 30, 2017

This series got
ME very, very depressed. The full-on suicide was horrific. The filmmakers REJECTED THE ADVICE OF EXPERTS TO NOT
REPRESENT THE SUICIDE WITHOUT CUTTING AWAY.(Rather than being irresponsible, I think they probably put artistic license before humanitarian prudence--thinking that brutal "art" could "save.")

COPYCAT SUICIDES

Suicide is the
#2 killer of teens today (North America). There are always copycat suicides
after popular depictions (or news stories covering actual teen suicides) of
teen suicides: this is exactly what happened after "Dead Poets
Society." The copycat suicides are hushed up by first responders and news
media, or they used to be, JUST for the fact of even more copycats.

I think the verdict is now out. The wildly-popular, or at least
widely-seen Netflix series "13 Reasons Why"--(based on the
book by the same name) about a teen girl who commits suicide--may actually have the reverse effect of its
intended purpose. The purpose of the book/series was to prevent teen
suicide by graphically depicting one, as well as the events leading up to it,
all narrated by the deceased girl herself.

I'm going to recommend the 5 articles below and one audio
interview--which all urge great caution in the viewing of the series. Adults
should certainly see the series so they can talk about it with teens who have
seen it (or may have seen it secretly). It is vital to just start talking with your
teens about the series, about teen suicide and about the many, many other
issues brought up in the series. Teens WANT and NEED to talk with trusted
adults about this series.

What I would really love is to hear from teens themselves (those
at risk for depression, suicide, etc., and those who are not but may have
friends who are) as to how they are processing it all. (Hint, hint: comment on
this blog post. Thank you!) Some are saying it is helping them to realize they need to be kind and little things can hurt a lot. Other young people are saying that they don't see any hope in the series--even though most people watched it all the way through waiting for something hopeful, some solution! Some teens are saying: but that's not real life! There IS hope!

Adults may want to begin watching the series with the very last
episode which is actually an Epilogue with actors, director, producers and
psychologists speaking about the making of the film (with clips of scenes). But
it is not enough to watch this one episode. Teens have seen the whole series:
you need to also.

SUPER INTENSE, SUPER
DARK, SUPER HOPELESS

The filmmakers
had the best of intentions, but for all their filmmaking and teen-brain
expertise, they failed to see that you cannot control/direct how the majority
of teens may very well process this super intense, super dark, super hopeless drama.

And
when you're a teen, who are you going to side with: adults telling you NOT to
do something? Or a teen rebelling against everything around herself and keenly
and articulately going on and on and on giving reasons for her suicide for
hours and hours of the series so that she has the last word and is in final control of the situation?

Hannah Baker, the new girl at school, is lonely and suffering. A
series of events, including sexting, rape, male objectification of females:
physical/emotional/verbal, teenage drinking, teen sex, bullying, a fatal car accident
she inadvertently and indirectly "caused," betrayal of friends, etc.,
led her to give up on life. Before she kills herself, she meticulously records
13 old-school cassette tapes to explain her "13 reasons why" she
killed herself. Each of the 13 reasons are a person that she effectively blames.
One young man in particular, Clay Jensen--as sweet and genuine as Hannah, with
whom she began a romantic relationship--is taking it very, very hard, of course.
Due to his shyness and awkwardness, he wasn't always "there for her,"
and so he is majorly blaming himself.

The series is realistic, gritty, and goes into the many heavy
issues facing teens today. The dialogue is in-depth. It is very rich because of
dealing in depth with so many teen topics. I'm sure teens will feel honoured by
the very fact that someone cared enough to show the world what they are really
facing (although, certainly, most teens aren't facing all of the issues
portrayed). But that's not good enough. There is only one glimmer of hope at
the very end when Clay reaches out to another isolated girl. But that's it. One
psychologist is calling this "negative flooding" or "exposure
therapy" which can actually work to make young people COMFORTABLE WITH
SUICIDE. The negativity is soooo overwhelming.

Here's a seeming correlation of the influence of "13 Reasons" on young people:"The difference is we've seen a more rapid increase in numbers than we've ever seen," said Dr. Ajit Jetmalani, the head of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at OHSU's Doernbecher Children's Hospital. "The pattern is similar, but it's the actual numbers that are alarming."

In his review, Christopher West makes the point that we shouldn't turn away from "13 Reasons" because WE'RE uncomfortable. Are we shunning/avoiding the ugliness that young people face every day? Are we refusing to know, understand, enter into their pain?

At one point before her complete downward spiral, Hannah says: "I need a purpose in life." Unfortunately, it's just a passing thought and this theme is not explored. Don't underestimate the ability of a teen to have a serious existential crisis. I did. And I seriously didn't want to live any more. I didn't know God yet and couldn't figure out why I was alive, what it was all for. Life seemed utterly absurd (even without the sufferings Hannah endured). And don't underestimate teens' ability to latch on to something challenging and true that might help in all the confusion. John Paul II wrote "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering" after he was shot. The point is not to just blithely accept suffering (we should try to relieve most types of human suffering, certainly), but it can make the world of difference to know that suffering can be redemptive: https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1984/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris.html

STAY TUNED....

There is so much I want to say about this series. I took 10 pages
of notes! Hopefully, I will begin slowly adding topics/subsections to this blog
post. But for now, I concur with the 6 resources above.

Oh, and here are some hopefully hope-filled tweets I was inspired to post:

April 25, 2017

The live-action "Beauty and the Beast" is a lovely
and faithful rendition of the animated version--faithful to the point of an
almost frame-by-frame facsimile. Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as The
Beast play their roles with precision. The stunning Audra McDonald--that voice!--plays
the operatic chifferobe.

"GAY" OVERTONE?

There was a much-publicized (before the film even released)
"gay kiss" and "gay overtone" to the film--a rather false
claim. I didn't see anything remotely like a "gay kiss," and neither
did anyone else I quizzed who saw the film. The same-sex affection of LeFou (Gaston's
manservant) to an oblivious Gaston (the incomparable Luke Evans--looking like
Errol Flynn) is shown briefly in a comment or two, and then in a sophisticated double-entendre
song (with enhanced entendre, differing from the animated version). Children
would surely miss the alternate meanings. But here's the thing. LeFou and
especially Gaston are horrible people! Gaston in particular is murderous,
conniving--hopelessly pompous, conceited and in love with no one but himself.
There is no way the filmmakers were trying to "promote acceptance of a gay
lifestyle" by putting forth treacherously villainous "gay
characters."

However, there is a quick, troubling scene where manly
soldiers fighting in the castle are instantly and magically dressed up as "Marie
Antoinette" style women: the voiceover says something to the effect of:
"Go forth! Be free to be pretty little boys!" Instead of the soldiers
being horrified, they embrace their "inner woman" with delight.
Hmmm....

BEAUTY IS WITHIN

A distinctively delicious, seasoned British female narrator
gets us right into the story, overemphasizing every precious syllable of every
familiar, winsome word. We hear and see The Beast's back story, the curse, the
harsh punishment and high stakes he is engaged in. We can see immediately
that--although a pretty exact replica of the animated version--this is not
going to be a lazy re-telling. No effort will be spared to spin a lavish yarn. There's
lots of CGI, but the virtuality is well-blended with actuality. (CGI is well-justified,
what with the walking, talking clocks, candelabra, chifferobe, footstool, tea
cups, etc.) The wonderful dictum, premise and "karmic statement" is
pronounced by the rebuffed enchantress to the selfish prince-turned-animal:
"BEAUTY IS WITHIN." The prince-turned-Beast must get someone to fall
in love with him or he and his whole household will remain frozen as they are:
he, a beast, and they, inanimate objects.

The opening scene is a big musical number in the little
French village which is our setting, and we sit back and relax and go along for
the ride. The pace and exposition is pretty exquisite: clever and never
lagging. Belle, while externally beautiful, is also "different," like
The Beast himself. She's a bookworm (an unusual pursuit for young ladies of the
time). Therefore, in a sense, her beauty is also "within." Her
deceased mother--from Paris--was also different, "until people started
imitating her." [Incidentally, my own father was a clothier, and in his
later years did not dress so dapperly any more. When we would bring this to his
attention, he would boom: "I AM fashion!"] Belle's father, a kindly
Geppetto-like man, is a watchmaker. Kevin Kline plays this rather minor
character with nuance, warmth and relish.

TAMING THE BEAST

Belle's father heads into town and Belle asks for only one
item--as is her tradition: a rose. The father's horse gets lost and they wind
up at the Beast's castle for the night, but they don't encounter The Beast
until, on his way home, Belle's father innocently picks a rose from The Beast's
garden. The Beast imprisons him in the castle. The horse gallops back to Belle
who has him take her back to the castle where she tricks both her father and
the Beast into letting her take her father's place. This act of kindness begins
to melt the Beast's icy heart ever so slowly--especially when he realizes that
she might be a savior if he can get her to fall in love with him.

Meanwhile, Belle's father returns to the village and tries
to recruit help, but his story sounds fantastical. Gaston--enraged with
jealousy that Belle may be falling in love with The Beast--has her father
locked up as insane, stirs up the townspeople through fearmongering, and they all
set out chanting "kill the beast!"

DISNEY BELLES

I think I would like to have seen a longer character arc for
The Beast--where he doesn't get so easily "tamed." I would rather have seen
more of Belle and Beast working it out, fits and starts, victories and
setbacks--all because of his character flaws (and maybe a few on Belle's part!)
Like Katniss in "Hunger Games," Belle is near-perfect with no
character development necessary. I guess that's becoming true of all Disney
heroines: just be "feisty" and "strong" and buck all
"feminine gender roles"--as if that's the only kind of girl-woman we
should want to emulate. The Beast could have been even more scary and merciless
at the beginning, even though he cruelly imprisons Belle's father: "a life
sentence for a rose"--as he was given. The Beast speaks of his own
punishment as "eternal damnation," presumably because fairytale
characters and creatures never die!

TALE AS OLD AS TIME

The particularly charming title song: "...tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme: beauty and the
beast," remind me of John Paul II's phrase in regard to male-female
love: "the perennial gift," and also the fact that while men civilize
the world for the benefit of all humanity (transcendence), women
"civilize" men--for the benefit of all humanity (immanence). Men are experts at the impersonal/objective, while women are experts at the personal/subjective. Both types of truth must always work together. Men are experts at the impersonal/objective, while women are experts at the personal/subjective. Both types of truth must always work together, hand in hand, like a dance.

April 3, 2017

The new film, "Bitter Harvest," is a long overdue depiction of the "Holodomor"--the starvation of 7-10 million Ukrainians (1932-1933) at the order of the communist Soviet Union's Jozef Stalin. Does it succeed as a film? Not exactly, but it should still be viewed in order to raise awareness and get a quick history lesson (so many films today neatly serve this vital purpose). Why did Stalin do this? Ukrainian opposition to Soviet confiscation of their lands, and other harsh, imposed policies. And even more astonishingly: HOW did Stalin do this? He closed the borders (so there was no escape nor news of the horror abroad) and sent henchmen to wrest every last grain of wheat, every last bit of food from the populace.

HOLODOMOR

Before the Nazi Holocaust, there was the Holodomor. Mass-scale slaughter is the fruit of atheistic, anti-human ideologies that see persons as disposable "problems"--standing in the way of "progress."

The film begins by showing us the pre-Soviet Ukraine ("breadbasket of Russia") dreaming of freedom from the long reach of the Russian czar, but living the peasant life of hard work and simple pleasures. Family life is strong, farm workers pause to pray in the fields. There is quick exposition and the story really moves along (it could actually have taken more time here to invest us in the characters). Actually, some of the action is happening so fast (with all the "beats" of the film of equal length) that "Bitter Harvest" could be called the pejorative "episodic." Yuri (Max Irons)--the grandson of a famous Ukrainian warrior--falls in love with a girl of his age when he's still a young boy, and we follow him and his lady love, Natalka (Samantha Barks, who was Eponine in "Les Miserables"), for the rest of the film. Happy times are not to last in the Ukrainian countryside. The Bolshevik Revolution is headed straight for them.

HIDDEN HORROR

Yuri was raised to be fiercely patriotic and is told: "No one can ever break your spirit or take away your freedom." Yuri develops into an artist, marries Natalka and goes to Kiev, even as the Russian noose is tightening around his peoples' neck, including his own family's. Natalka does not go to Kiev, but stays behind to care for their parents and help on the farm. (Stalin's predecessor, Lenin, dies, and Stalin calls him "soft." Stalin will now show no mercy, and he will use the Communist propaganda machine to cover up his hideous plans. Deportations to Siberia begin. "Push them, crush them.")

There are a few scenes that give us an idea of the heroism and suffering endured. The Soviets begin collecting valuables (and eradicating religion). A Ukrainian priest hides gold icons. The Soviet operative demands he hand them over: "There is not God, evil, sin or hell." The priest answers: "Hell is the inability to love," for which he is slain.

THE LONG ESCAPE

Yuri's young artist friend, who also went to Kiev, believes in Communist ideals and believes they will be good for the Ukraine and make it a great nation--until he realizes that controlling, enslaving, murderous ways are part and parcel of the system. Suddenly, artists may no longer express themselves freely. They must create highly-stylized, conformist, promotional, Soviet-art posters. Yuri's friend kills himself and Yuri winds up in prison where firing squads are a daily event. Our film finally slows down a bit as Yuri manages to escape and head back to his wife and family in the country. The rest of the film is a long trek to this effect, wherein Yuri encounters homeless and starving people (who don't really look in too bad a shape), and there are minor uprisings. The rest of the film really drags as Yuri reunites with Natalka and they try to escape the Ukraine.

TOO MILD

The cataclysmic, intentional, sinister, raw, mind-boggling evil and the staggering proportions of the Holodomor are not captured in "Bitter Harvest." I kept waiting for it, but that movie is still to be made. The filmmakers had to make the story personal (the story of Yuri and Natalka), but what transpires is highly improbable--or, perhaps, portrayed improbably. Perhaps an engaging "based on a true story" will emerge from this piece of history, and that will become a great film. Toward the end of this film (the entire drawn out escape sequence) the soundtrack becomes an awful, generically heroic, churning, grinding loop that really grates on the nerves.

UKRAINE TODAY

The Ukraine's struggle never really ended, even after the dissolution of the former U.S.S.R. Through the years, my Ukrainian friends told me that KGB-types continued to hunt down and assassinate those who were Soviet-resisters. Some of my friends won't even use their actual surnames.
Mandatory follow-up viewing: "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom" (2015) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4908644/videoplayer/vi3224023833?ref_=tt_ov_vi , Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary. 6,000 Ukrainians have already died in the Euromaidan-protests-that-became-a-battle-that-has-now-expanded-to-include-the-conflict-over-the-annexation-of-Crimea-by-Russia/pro-Russian separatists.

This lovely and winning sentiment bookends the movie:

"Before I grew up
and realized that dragons were real
and evil roamed the world,
I fell in love."

--Thankfully, word did eventually get out about the false, manufactured "famine," as well as photographs.

--"Holodomor" literally means: death by starvation. The full horror of what transpired was only revealed after the Soviet Union fell, circa 1991.

--In 2003, Russia signed a U.N. Declaration admitting to the Holodomor.

--I'm wondering if--even when the word got out (see news item below)--the rest of the world at the time just didn't believe such a feat/catastrophe was possible. Compounded by denial on the part of the U.S.S.R., perhaps the Holodomor was just dismissed from our collective consciousness?

--Wassyl Slipak, a Ukrainian opera singer, a singer with the opera in Paris, died in 2016 fighting for Ukraine.

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About Me

I was going to be an ornithologist, but God zapped me and I now belong to the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of religious women dedicated to spreading God's Word through the media: www.pauline.org. I give workshops to teens and adults on Media Literacy, Philosophy, and Theology of the Body. I'm a movie reviewer for LifeTeen and Sirius XM--The Catholic Channel. I have an M.A. in Media Literacy Education; a B.A. in philosophy and theology from St. John's U, NYC; and a Certificate in Pastoral Youth Ministry from the Center for Youth Ministry Development, Naugatuck, CT. I studied screenwriting at UCLA and Act One, Hollywood. I'm also studying at the Theology of the Body Institute in PA & have written a TOB curriculum for teens, young adults, adults. My daily book for women is "He Speaks To You." I'm the writer/producer of www.MediaApostle.com and a co-producer on www.The40Film.com.